though it is presented in a far more technical and scholastic
Aristotle’s ethics.
form, and involves a more distinct rejection of the fundamental
Socratic paradox. The same result appears when
we compare the methods of the three philosophers.
Although the Socratic induction forms a striking
feature of Plato’s dialogues, his ideal method of ethics is
purely deductive; he admits common sense only as supplying
provisional steps and starting-points from which the mind is to
ascend to knowledge of absolute good, through which knowledge
alone, as he conceives, the lower notions of particular goods are
to be truly conceived. Aristotle, discarding the transcendentalism
of Plato, naturally retained from Plato’s teaching the original
Socratic method of induction from and verification by common
opinion. Indeed, the windings of his exposition are best understood
if we consider his literary manner as a kind of Socratic
dialogue formalized and reduced to a monologue. He first leads
us by an induction to the fundamental notion of ultimate end or
good for man. All men, in acting, aim at some result, either
for its own sake or as a means to some further end; but obviously
not everything can be sought merely as a means; there must
be some ultimate end. In fact men commonly recognize such an
end, and agree to call it well-being[1] (εὐδαιμονία). But they
take very different views of its nature; how shall we find the
true view? We observe that men are classified according to
their functions; all kinds of man, and indeed all organs of
man, have their special functions, and are judged as functionaries
and organs according as they perform their functions well or
ill. May we not then infer that man, as man, has his proper
function, and that the well-being or “doing well” that all seek
really lies in fulfilling well the proper function of man,—that is,
in living well that life of the rational soul which we recognize
as man’s distinctive attribute?
Again, this Socratic deference to common opinion is not shown merely in the way by which Aristotle reaches his fundamental conception; it equally appears in his treatment of the conception itself. In the first place, though in Aristotle’s view the most perfect well-being consists in the exercise of man’s “divinest part,” pure speculative reason, he keeps far from the paradox of putting forward this and nothing else as human good; so far, indeed, that the greater part of his treatise is occupied with an exposition of the inferior good which is realized in practical life when the appetitive or impulsive (semi-rational) element of the soul operates under the due regulation of reason. Even when the notion of “good performance of function” was thus widened, and when it had further taken in the pleasure that is inseparably connected with such functioning, it did not yet correspond to the whole of what a Greek commonly understood as “human well-being.” We may grant, indeed, that a moderate provision of material wealth is indirectly included, as an indispensable pre-requisite of a due performance of many functions as Aristotle conceives it—his system admits of no beatitudes for the poor; still there remain other goods, such as beauty, good birth, welfare of progeny, the presence or absence of which influenced the common view of a man’s well-being, though they could hardly be shown to be even indirectly important to his “well-acting.” These Aristotle attempts neither to exclude from the philosophic conception of well-being nor to include in his formal definition of it. The deliberate looseness which is thus given to his fundamental doctrine characterizes more or less his whole discussion of ethics. He plainly says that the subject does not admit of completely scientific treatment; his aim is to give not a definite theory of human good, but a practically adequate account of its most important constituents.
The most important element, then, of well-being or good life for ordinary men Aristotle holds to consist in well-doing as determined by the notions of the different moral excellences.
In expounding these, he gives throughout the pure result of analytical observation of the common moral consciousness of his age. Ethical truth, in his view, is to be attained by careful comparison of particular moral opinions, just as physical truth is to be obtained by induction from particular physical observations. On account of the conflict of opinion in ethics we cannot hope to obtain certainty upon all questions; still reflection will lead us to discard some of the conflicting views and find a reconciliation for others, and will furnish, on the whole, a practically sufficient residuum of moral truth. This adhesion to common sense, though it involves a sacrifice of both depth and completeness in Aristotle’s system, gives at the same time an historical interest which renders it deserving of special attention as an analysis of the current Greek ideal of “fair and good life” (καλοκἀγαθία). His virtues are not arranged on any clear philosophic plan; the list shows no serious attempt to consider human life exhaustively, and exhibit the standard of excellence appropriate to its different departments or aspects. He seems to have taken as a starting-point Plato’s four cardinal virtues. The two comprehensive notions of Wisdom and Justice (δικαιοσύνη) he treats separately. As regards both his analysis leads him to diverge considerably from Plato. As we saw, his distinction between practical and speculative Wisdom belongs to the deepest of his disagreements with his master; and in the case of δικαιοσύνη again he distinguishes the wider use of the term to express Law-observance, which (he says) coincides with the social side of virtue generally, and its narrower use for the virtue that “aims at a kind of equality,” whether (1) in the distribution of wealth, honour, &c., or (2) in commercial exchange, or (3) in the reparation of wrong done. Then, in arranging the other special virtues, he begins with courage and temperance, which (after Plato) he considers as the excellences of the “irrational element” of the soul. Next follow two pairs of excellences, concerned respectively with wealth and honour: (1) liberality and magnificence, of which the latter is exhibited in greater matters of expenditure, and (2) laudable ambition and highmindedness similarly related to honour. Then comes gentleness—the virtue regulative of anger; and the list is concluded by the excellences of social intercourse, friendliness (as a mean between obsequiousness and surliness), truthfulness and decorous wit.
The abundant store of just and close analytical observation contained in Aristotle’s account of these notions give it a permanent interest, even beyond its historical value as a delineation of the Greek ideal of “fair and good” life.[2] But its looseness of arrangement and almost grotesque co-ordination of qualities widely differing in importance are obvious. Thus his famous general formula for virtue, that it is a mean or middle state, always to be found somewhere between the vices which stand to it in the relation of excess and defect, scarcely avails to render his treatment more systematic. It was important, no doubt, to express the need of observing due measure and proportion, in order to attain good results in human life no less than in artistic products; but the observation of this need was no new thing in Greek literature; indeed, it had already led the Pythagoreans and Plato to find the ultimate essence of the ordered universe in number. But Aristotle’s purely quantitative statement of the relation of virtue and vice is misleading, even where it is not obviously inappropriate; and sometimes leads him to such eccentricities as that of making simple veracity a mean between boastfulness and mock-modesty.[3]
- ↑ This cardinal term is commonly translated “happiness”; and it must be allowed that it is the most natural term for what we (in English) agree to call “our being’s end and aim.” But happiness so definitely signifies a state of feeling that it will not admit the interpretation that Aristotle (as well as Plato and the Stoics) expressly gives to εὐδαιμονία; the confusion is best avoided by rendering the word by the less familiar “well-being.”
- ↑ Aristotle follows Plato and Socrates in identifying the notions of καλός (“fair,” “beautiful”) and ἀγαθός (“good”) in their application to conduct. We may observe, however, that while the latter term is used to denote the virtuous man, and (in the neuter) equivalent to End generally, the former is rather chosen to express the quality of virtuous acts which in any particular case is the end of the virtuous agent. Aristotle no doubt faithfully represents the common sense of Greece in considering that, in so far as virtue is in itself good to the virtuous agent, it belongs to that species of good which we distinguish as beautiful. In later Greek philosophy the term καλόν (“honestum”) became still more technical in the signification of “morally good.”
- ↑ The above account is considerably expanded in H. Sidgwick’s Hist. of Ethics (5th ed., 1902), pp. 59-70.
